"Three young people with promising futures are slaughtered, and a fourth one brutally shot in the face by a gang of thugs that allegedly included an illegal alien, and all Gov. Corzine and Mayor Booker can do in response is come up with a multi-level scheme to punish law-abiding gun owners," observed SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. "That's not simply disappointing, it is reprehensible.

"If there was ever a more clear-cut illustration of the anti-gun mindset among liberal Democrats, I have not seen it," he continued. "Corzine, Booker and others of their bent will blather all day and night about providing sanctuary to illegal aliens, and the need to crack down on street crime, but who do they invariably target for tough justice? Law-abiding gun owners who had nothing to do with this crime, or any other crime, and the worst part of it is, they know it."

Among the proposals floated by Corzine and Booker are local ordinances requiring the registration of all firearms in Newark, and the establishment of so-called "gun courts." Another proposal is to require gun owners, who are themselves victimized when a criminal steals their firearm, to report the gun theft immediately or be held responsible. Booker also wants to ban gun sales in residential areas or near schools, even though there are no licensed firearms dealers in the entire city.

"First Booker plans to spend millions on surveillance cameras so cops can watch crimes being committed, rather than prevent those crimes," Gottlieb said, "and now he and Corzine want to punish gun owners who are unfortunate enough to become crime victims, themselves, probably as an alternative to actually catching burglars and other real criminals and putting them behind bars. This is not simply an insult to every law-abiding firearms owner in New Jersey, who must already have a license, it is also an insult to the memories of those three young murder victims.

"Instead of using this horrible crime as a foundation for real change," Gottlieb concluded, "Corzine and Booker are exploiting it to push their personal agenda against gun owners. This is a new low in anti-gun demagoguery."